I just finished two weeks of ‘guest hosting’ a local morning show while the regulars were on vacation. It was an interesting experience/experiment. The question I’ve been asked most was “Did you have fun?”…well, I’m not sure. 

It was tough ‘plugging back in’, but at least I had someone else as the resident quidnunc/co-host.  Getting up at 4 AM wasn’t so bad, but I am not sure I would want to go back to that lifestyle full time. It was an excuse to eat PopTarts for breakfast. 

The first thing that comes to mind was how much work it was and how little time I actually had to do the work. The ‘work’ I am speaking of was the preparation. 

I found that if I didn’t get the music for the next day before 4 PM, I was pressed for the time I needed to complete at least a good outline for the following days show.  I easily spent as much time preparing as I did actually being on the air… and that is barely enough time.

It is relatively easy to compile and write for the topical content and any ‘bits’ that it might inspire, as well as the current station activity and promotion that should be included in the show, but I prefer to build the show around the music. 

For a music format, music is essentially the ‘bones’ of the show and I like to give every song a reason for being there or at least tie the other content into the music that I play and vise versa. 

Injecting a news story or bit out of nowhere, gives the show a disjointed feeling and lack of continuity - one thing leads to another. Even though there is plenty of material, finding a way to weave it all together is the challenge. 

Getting to know who is listening is another challenge. I knew the target audience (demographics, psychographics, etc), but it’s not the same as meeting someone face to face or talking to them on the phone. By the time the two weeks were up I was just starting to get a feel for who I was talking to and what they responded to. Keep in mind that, in this case, I was dealing with an audience that was accustomed a different ‘personality soup’ than what I was serving up. 

Knowing the audience is one thing, getting to know the co-host and operator is another. The operator is conditioned to the behavior of the regular hosts as far as things like timing and cues. Although my operator was very good at what he did, two weeks was not enough to be come acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of yours truly. At least I was afforded the freedom to concentrate on creativity and performance and not what button to push and when.

The other key ingredient was the news person/entertainment anchor/co-host. She is very professional and the one I would have chosen had I been given a choice of who to work with from those available. However, as we all know, when you have co-hosts chemistry is everything and in this case we just had to hope for the best… God bless her. For the first couple of days she must have been looking at me and wondering where the hell did this guy come from? Again, she is used to filling a certain role and doing things a certain way and as ‘vacation relief’, it wasn’t my job to re-educate her and teach a new way of doing things. Hopefully, she did get a new perspective that may serve her in some fashion as she continues with her broadcasting career. 

Since the time when having a ‘team’ show was accepted as a must for mornings, the only other time in my career I have ‘co-hosted’ a morning show, or any other, was with a friend that I had known for years, Chuck Chandler. The chemistry was natural. Oh, and there was one year with the lovely Jodi Hughes and one Sunday morning Billy Williams and I decided to do the ‘April Fools’ Show, but thats another story… otherwise, I am used to interacting with the audience exclusively; just putting my head down and going; not waiting for an ‘in-studio’ reaction; conversing with the audience instead of having them listen in on someone else’s conversation. 

One interesting thing I realized was, how difficult being a ‘coach’ and, at the same time, a ‘player’ was. Maintaining perspective wasn’t easy. At times, once in performance mode, I am somewhat oblivious to some of the obvious detail. I was reminded about things like giving the phone number when doing a contest so you just don’t get the prize pigs that have it tattooed to their arm and making sure everyone is reminded of it in case they are inspired to participate in the show in some fashion. That kind of thing may just be something someone in my position might do when focusing more on the big picture. In recent years, my attentions have been on the bigger issues that radio faces in terms of being a compelling form of entertainment. 

It must also be noted that I was blessed to have a team of ‘consultants’ like Bob McCord, Don Kay, Len Thuesen, Marty Forbes and others, who weighed in with tips and insight relative to what I was trying to achieve with my two week ‘experiment’. Don Kay went so far as to actually aircheck my show and hand me a cassette and a page of notes!  Every morning show should be so lucky as to have a team like that behind them. 

I wasn’t trying to be the guys I was filling in for. Never forgetting that it wasn’t my show, still, I was hired to do what I do. Thankfully the management of the station subscribes to the philosophy of ‘when you hire a dog to bark, you let him bark’ and, of course, I certainly don’t mind being told if I happen to be barking up the wrong tree, but from the beginning I have been treated royally. Thanks to Pat Cardinal for having the confidence to put a guy like me in a radio station control room unsupervised. Will he do it again? The ‘de-briefing’ isn’t for another couple of days… 

How did it go overall? Well, the audience would be the best judge of that, but the feed back from listeners was positive. Thank you. 

After being parachuted in for a two week stint, in the final analysis I would have to say it was more work than play. All I could hope for was that I at least sounded like I was having fun.

I must admit I was treated royally and presented with hand picked music for my shows. I have no complaints, but I spent more time preparing than I did actually being on the air. 

I believe if I did it enough to get through the curve of learning a new board and format to the point of it becoming like breathing – not having to concentrate on the technical aspect of producing a show – that it could be more fun than work. 

At this stage it is work. 

I think it is because today it is not my life and it seems like I take it more seriously because I have to actively find time to prepare every bit; prepare for every time I open the mic. I don’t feel comfortable just ‘winging it’ or flying by the seat of my pants and letting what happens on the phone determine what the content of my show will be… too unpredictable. ‘Unpredictable’ is what I want to be, but in a pre-determined way. 

Observational material isn’t enough; what my listeners are doing isn’t enough. Yes, I want to know what they are doing but I can pretty well determine that beforehand. 

I want to bring them something compelling. I want to make sense of the music; to have a reason for playing the songs I play. It is a music format after all. 

It just seems like more work now… or is it? Do I take it too seriously? 

I recognize the big difference being that then I lived it. It didn’t seem like work. It was my life. It gave me everything and I gave just as much back. I was a part of everything that went on. Everything I absorbed, while I wasn’t on the air, I gave back on my show. 

It was really tough then for someone, who had family and other responsibilities not directly related to the radio station, to be a part of the family of jocks that fed off each other and the activities the station was involved in … which was everything. 

You went to every concert, every sporting event, did ‘remotes’, on-the-street giveaways, dances at schools every week, hung out with one another when there was nothing else going on. 

I am guessing that times have changed, radio is more’ family friendly’ as far as employees go, but at one time radio personalities went through about as many wives as radio stations they were employed at… and I saw it first hand. It is hardly an exaggeration. It was either your ‘radio family’ or the other. It was very difficult to juggle both. 

It is my impression that things have evolved to where it is your ’job description’ that determines your involvement in the radio station and related activities. The job description involves doing the occasional remote or to MC an event now and then, make an appearance at a station event, do a little production… and these days that means voicing a spot or two, you no longer necessarily have to actually produce the spot and put it in the run. 

So, here I am now (30 some years later, to give you a little perspective). I have other responsibilities; other interests. My life style now is more ‘unplugged’. That doesn’t mean I can’t plug back in, but my lifestyle is what it is. I currently make my living primarily doing voice over and I love it… yes, even the part about not knowing when your next job is going to come, or if at all. 

Here’s the kicker. As much as I may have professed over the last few years that I finally got radio out of my blood, I know I haven’t. 

I still have the desire to entertain and communicate, to connect with an audience through a radio with all the mystique and possibilities that I always talk about with my like minded radio geek friends. 

I tried my hand at teaching radio at a secondary school thinking that would be the ultimate outlet, but talk about work and responsibility, it wore me out. Granted, I was co-hosting a morning show at the time… 

Now, I am agonizing over whether to even do ‘vacation relief’ on a regular basis. Sure radio talent budgets ain’t what they used to be, especially for part timers and to perform at the standard that I have set for myself is a lot of work. I can’t afford to do it just for the ‘fun’ of it, but in some masochistic way, I want to do it.  It’s almost like I have unfinished business and can make a difference by not just writing and romanticizing about it, but doing it. 

Like jazz singer Kurt Elling said at a recent performance I attended “everything is a work in progress until you die or give up”.  

Even though I haven’t been directly active in the business of radio for the past few years, I have stayed on top of it and am very much aware of the challenges the business faces. My days of listening to the radio for entertainment purposes are long gone. I always listen to the radio and think how I would have done this, or how I would do that… okay, more accurately, I actually yell at the radio in frustration with what I hear more often than not. Yeah, I’m a picky bastard when it comes to the little things, but I digress. 

There is lots of talk about ‘local’ these days versus ‘canned’ or syndicated shows. You want the current weather conditions, maybe the time and temp, the traffic conditions, what’s going on in the city… but that’s not entertainment. 

It seems now you get one or the other - syndicated entertainment or local content. I and most jocks want to deliver both. That is what determines the ultimate in ‘local’ radio. 

Can it be done? I guess the question is, can I do it?… should I do it? 

There are plenty of kids out there that would pay the station to push the buttons and give the time and temp. I am not a kid… I do kinda feel like one, though…

Follow Keith James on facebook or @soundspark on Twitter 

I do find myself holding back a little bit. Mainly, because I want to be constructive and share philosophies and concepts that I hold to be true with those that have been charged with pushing the buttons and trying to communicate with their listeners. 

Most of the communication concepts that I have picked up over the past 35 years apply whether you are on the radio or on Twitter. Above all else, it’s a matter of communicating one-on-one from behind the mic or a keyboard. 

My posts occasionally inspire a comment or a phone call. 

One phone call I received a couple of weeks ago was from the Operations/Program director of a cluster of stations in my local market. Our paths have crossed over the years and we share quite a few mutual friends, but we have never worked together. He is well respected by many of my friends in broadcasting so I was pleased to be contacted by him and be presented with the opportunity to get to know him personally. 

He obviously is not put off by my take on the state of radio – tempered though it is, so as not to bite the hand that feeds me from time to time. 

The reason for his call? To ask if I would I like to get back on the air. 

This is it, I thought… put up or shut up. 

So I agreed to give it a whirl and see if it still offered some gratification. I spent a few hours learning the board and snuck in one evening, without telling friends or colleagues what I was up to, and did a few hours on the air. 

I had that evening’s playlist e-mailed to me so I could prepare every break beforehand. That freed my mind to concentrate on the technical aspect of the show. That’s what was responsible for most of my anxiety – what button to push when. I am a fan of technology so I like to stay on top of what’s new, but not a lot has really changed in the last 5 or 6 years since I was on the air last. 

So here I am. I agreed to do a little ‘vacation relief’. Why not? It will give me a new perspective on what is going on at the station level these days and give a little objectivity to the jaded ramblings of some ‘out of touch old guy’. 

I admit I do feel like the pressure is on. I am now in a position to back up my romantic ideas of what being on the radio could be/should be by example. I don’t expect the manifestation of my programming philosophies to mesh perfectly those of the station, but that is where the opportunity to learn is. Will I be asked to do something that goes against the philosophies that I espouse? That’ll be the fun part… 

Whether I live up to my own expectations or anyone else’s remains to be seen, but I am always ready to get up and dust myself off and plow ahead. 

I might need some help with the getting up part though… my knees aren’t quite what they used to be. 

NOTE: Next time I’m on the air, I’ll alert you to the time, date and station… I need constructive criticism, too.

Follow @soundspark on Twitter or Keith James on facebook.

There are few talents that can just go ‘off the cuff’ or adlib their way through a break or bit and do it well. The Greaseman, in his hey day, was a master. So was Bob McCord. He was one of the few that really did create ‘theater of the mind’ using sound effects, drop-ins and character voices to really entertain. Radio’s current, tight formats don’t allow for this kind of freedom with the exception of a few morning shows. 

For the most part, being a good on-air host has to do with preparation. It starts with knowing what the ingredients are that will make up the show then deciding what your ‘angle’ will be in the presentation of those ingredients. 

Use a late night talk show as an example - minus the staff of writers. 

David Letterman has a script… and notes… and cue cards. He has a plan for every segment and event. This allows him to go off on a tangent or roll with something totally unexpected that happens. He can be spontaneous because he has created a cushion; something to fall back on. By planning you create more opportunity for creativity and spontaneity because you are not concerned with, and don’t have the pressure of, thinking on your feet. It creates space around your thoughts which allows you to be more in tune with what is happening around you. Too many people think they have to be good at ‘adlibbing’. On a music station you don’t. It’s not like doing play-by-play or having ‘live’ guests who might throw you a curve. You have a lot more control over what’s going to happen. 

This is what ‘producing’ a show is all about. 

Some really talented song writers can make up a song on the spot, but it wouldn’t measure up to something that has been given some forethought like a well crafted song. The technical execution is nothing without good lyrics and a melody. Even with that, you still must emotionally connect with the listener. You have to sell it. 

Preparation allows you to concentrate on performance. As you well know, there is so much vying for people’s attention these days. When you get it, you can’t let go until you have conveyed your message. You must be compelling in your tone and manner. Most radio hosts are more concerned with what they are going to say than how they are going to say it and performance suffers. 

Again, using a song as an example, how do you paint the picture of a life story in three and a half minutes? Think of the pictures that one single line of a song can paint… the images and thoughts it can trigger that are unique to your experience and interpretation. How long did the writer spend trying to come up with the right words? Some songs can write themselves, but more often than not the writer wrestles with every syllable. Every song has a theme which is reflected in the chorus, which is repeated… this metaphor has endless connections to what you want to achieve depending on how far you want to take it.

Song intros, weather, traffic conditions, set-ups for a contest or event should be scripted even if only scratched on the back of a napkin. That is just a part of producing a ‘bit’ or, again, producing a show. 

You have to have a plan if you are going to deviate from one. You have to know the rules if you want to be sure your breaking them. 

It has been expressed many times that too often radio time slots have been reduced to ‘shifts’ as opposed to ‘shows’ with a host that has a style or personality that makes it distinct and unique even though it follows the same basic format as all other timeslots on a given station. Try a little more preparation. 

Simply put, write it down.

What technology can’t do is present the music in a way that makes it meaningful or potentially more interesting. Radio used to do that really well until it was decided that playing more songs in a row without interruption was a way to keep people listening. Along with the bathwater (commercials every tow or three songs) they threw out the baby (the person that kept me interested in what was happening and what was going to happen next). That was the only reason I would sit through a song I didn’t like. I didn’t want to miss the one coming up that the DJ was so excited about. Now if I turn on the radio, more often than not, no one is there to tell me what’s going to happen next so I punch around ‘til I find what I like that is happening now. The only thing you can count on is for some disembodied voice barfing out some slogan with no relevance to me or the ever popular clip from the Simpson’s with some zaps and swooshes that also mean nothing. 

When a Disk jockey is talking it’s usually has nothing to do with the music. DJ’s… announcers?… I don’t know. I long for the day when in good conscience we can again refer to them as ‘personalities’. They certainly aren’t ‘presenters’ as they are referred to in Europe… I digress. Anyway, DJ’s don’t present music in a fashion that peaks my interest or encourages me to listen to something unfamiliar. I just want to load my pod with my favorite artists and songs and go my merry way. Maybe a friend will turn me on to something new. What happened to that ‘friend’ on the radio that I could trust to do the same? 

Man, it used to be fun. You never new what was going to happen next, other than the song that was coming up, but that was only part of the magic. To hear someone on the radio ‘break the rules’ was the best. Radio was ‘live’; anything could happen! 

When was the last time you immediately played a new song that you loved, over again on your pod or computer? When was the last time you heard the guy on the radio do that because it was so good? Crazy audience anticipation and excitement was built around a new release by a major artist and he just new it was what the audience would love. Have you ever heard that happen?! I bet nobody born in the last 30 years has ever heard that kind of radio. 

There is an inherent magic that radio, and only radio, has the ability to conjure, no matter what the format is and how it is consumed. Uninspired radio streamed on the internet is still uninspired radio. The method of delivery doesn’t make it any more palatable.

This is not some yearning, nostalgic romanticism. It’s not a matter of getting back to what radio was. It’s a matter of knowing what made radio what it was.  

Yes, there was a method behind the madness… “Oh, you mean there was a baby in that bath water?!”

Something that seems to have been lost is the art of illusion in terms of what makes radio different than other forms of entertainment. Then again radio doesn’t even seem to see itself as being in the entertainment business anymore anyway. I think this is, in part, because of a programming philosophy run amok.  

The idea of on air talent being ‘real’, like ‘the guy down the street’, got separated from the underlying concept of entertainment.  

Have you ever been told to communicate with the listener like you were the person next door; to sound like someone I’d like to have a beer with? Whoever told you that was well intentioned, but with all due respect, the guy next door sounds as if he didn’t finish high school. 

“Being a friend to the listener” got lost in translation. It doesn’t mean you have to sound like the person that is listening. 

In this era of being ’real’, don’t think of it as being deceptive if you are being something that you are not in the name of entertainment. I know the BS sensors are well tuned these days, but we all still like to be entertained.  

Are you tapped into what going on? Do you sound interesting; maybe a little ‘larger than life’? At the very least, you should sound like you are informed, an insider; that you have insight and information that is unique You don’t necessarily have to know more than me, just have an interesting take on what you do know.  

Along with the art of illusion, another thing that has been lost is radio’s position as a front runner in the entertainment business. The personalities on the radio were ‘entertainers’ – performers. The concept of ‘performing’ in the radio business is now equated with doing your chores cheerfully; your contribution to the business of running a radio station in a practical sense. Gone are the days of performing in the sense of actually putting on a show as opposed to doing a ‘shift’. 

**Rant Warning**  

I heard someone on the radio emote with glee in anticipation of a couple of horrific stories that I, the listener, should really look forward to hearing more about as if it were ‘good’ news. It’s a reflection of how news has become mired in the depths of sensationalism and, as I heard one local anchor put it, we all know that ’news’ is essentially bad news” as if it shouldn’t be, or ever was, anything else!?  I heard George Stroumboulopoulos say ‘shit’ in one of his monologues lately and I couldn’t help but think about how the writers, editors and directors feel some sense of accomplishment in ‘getting away with it’. 

In terms of what we hear on the air the only advancement radio can boast in the name of entertainment is working the words penis and vagina into the ‘conversation’… “Ooh, we are really communicating on their level now, boys! Are we being ‘real’ or what?!”  It saddens me that we want to be so much like the guy on the street, to really ‘communicate’, that the reality of our influence as broadcasters and ‘performers’  has no bearing on what used to be referred to as professionalism. I am not offended not by the ‘words’, but how low the bar is now for what constitutes entertainment and creativity. 

Uh oh, rant is picking up momentum… 

Do you say  Noo-cue-ler or new-clee-ar? For that matter, do you say noos or news? Yer or your? Kin or can? No one except you should ever think about it. It should never come to my attention as a listener that you, in the words of Dr. Fribish, “Don’t speak good.” 

Does nobody really care if the pronunciation of the word nuclear is now accepted as nucular? What is going on? I don’t have the largest vocabulary around and am constantly being corrected by the grammar police in my house, but I will always (we’ll, okay most of the time) try to find a word that has more than four letters to emphasize what I am trying to say. I accept it as a creative challenge if nothing else. To really being able to communicate with the written a spoken word is something I try to get better at all the time, but why? Pretty soon nobody is going to understand anything I am saying, anyway.

“Now that I have been working in radio, I am interested in doing some freelance voicing, but am not too sure how to get into it. Any information you could give me would be greatly appreciated.”  

Short of giving you a personal critique of your voice and ability, here is my two cents worth… 

Regardless of how ‘ready’ you are to get out there, let’s start from the beginning - with the voice you want to market. 

If you are just stating to take it seriously, here are a few tips on how to improve your voice and ability to use it: 

Practice speaking while holding your nose closed. The point is to try not to sound ‘nasal’. This practice helps you learn to ‘project’ from the right spot. It forces you to deliver from the diaphragm and your chest, not your throat and nasal cavity. This can overcome the ‘sound of a cold’ when so plagued.

Enunciation is important. Watch for little things like: to (ta), you (ya), can (kin),etc. It’s subtle, but it’s the little things that distinguish you as a pro. Don’t over do it or you will sound stiff and ‘announcer-ish’ – the kiss of death with today’s obsession with being ‘real’.  In practice, over enunciating is very important, using your teeth tongue and lips to an extreme when warming up or even while performing. As long as you are not on camera, listeners can’t see it and, ultimately, shouldn’t be able to hear it either. 

Use your voice as much as possible. Talk to yourself, a lot… out loud, the more you use your voice the more control you will have over it. Mimic every thing you hear. Not to sound like someone else, although that might be helpful at times, but to expand your delivery styles. Record and listen to yourself often. Compare your recordings with what you hear on the radio and TV. Try and emulate the deliveries you like. Be very critical… and very careful. What you often hear is not necessarily what you want to emulate.  

The tone and manner of delivery you use depends on what the message, and who the intended audience, is. What kind of project is it? Corporate narration? B2B promotion? Documentary? Commercial? Training video? As far as commercials go, work at even more diverse deliveries. Mimic every thing you hear to try and keep stretching the extremes. In all of that, you should ultimately try to find your voice; who you are; your ‘uniqueness’. What’s going to set you apart from the other voices that are being considered for a project? You need to find your own style - inflection and cadence often define personal style. Yours will emerge in time.

Your voice may have some natural character but, it’s not so much what you have as it is how you use it. A ‘pleasant’ or ‘deep’ voice isn’t necessarily a pre-requisite to success in this business. Don’t focus too much on forcing the lower end of your register. It limits the dynamics in your delivery and can make you sound lifeless. The more you use your full range the more it will expand at both ends of the scale.  

Consider a voice coach - Google and you will find. There are many that can work with you from wherever they are. If you are really serious, take singing and acting lessons or some type of training in these areas. This, at the very least, gives you some great ‘warm up’ routines exercises.  

Ready to get out there? 

Since you work in radio then you have access to the resources needed to put together a demo reel. With regard to your ‘reel’ (CD, MP3 on the web, etc.), to elicit better feedback and critiques of your demo, you should include some full reads, as opposed to just quick snippets, so the reviewer has an idea of whether you can sustain a delivery or character for the length of a 60 or 30 second spot. And don’t do character voices and impressions unless they are very, very good. You’ll need unbiased opinions and true objectivity for comparison sake to make that judgment. 

Now, you might get hired based on your demo, but performing in front of a control room of people is a whole new thing that most don’t take to naturally. The point is - your demo might sound great, but can you duplicate that ‘live’ while incorporating direction and nuances suggested by the producer/director/writer? A good demo that you spent hours producing may get you in the door, but if you can’t perform on cue, you’ll not get hired by that person again. Make sure you are ready. 

 Once you have a demo that stands up to everything else you hear, you’ll need to contact ad agencies, independent producers and recording studios (most listed under company names in advertising, audio/video and recording categories in the YP) with your demo and any other self-promotion. Also, register with the ‘voice banks’ on the internet that offer FREE registration.  

Now, you need to get out there, if only for the experience. Like everything else, you’ll find “you can’t get a job without experience and you can’t get experience without a job”. Just wait for someone to let their guard down. Introduce yourself at the local recording studios. Volunteer your services as a way of getting experience and introducing yourself. 

You should be aware that many contractors have a pool of ‘favorite’ talent that they use. Many stick with the ‘tried and true’ out of convenience and lack of imagination (please, don’t quote me on that). That is not a practice uncommon in any market. You certainly won’t get the call if ‘they’ are not aware of your presence, desire, ability and availability. 

With a local agent, assuming your talents have been evaluated and you are able to perform as expected by clients, you would probably at least get the opportunity to audition for available jobs. 

Again, this is general information intended to answer the questions I often get from those looking to get into the Voice-Over business. Take it all with a grain of salt. There is a wealth of information on the internet, including lots of inexpensive books that can offer an introduction to the business. There are quite a few web sites that offer free information on what the business is all about and what it takes to get into it. One caution: paying a membership fee to a web site to host your profile and demos may be a disappointing exercise in the early stages of your VO career. 

It was to be a great convenience and programming ‘assistant’. It increased efficiencies and control of the stations overall sound, but it ultimately took away the responsibility of a program director to teach jocks the philosophies of programming music with all the required and desired outcomes. 

Initially, the print out of music for each show still required the skill of on-air talent to do what a computer couldn’t do; no matter how many control parameters were written in the program. You still had the freedom to pick what record should follow the next while staying within the guidelines of sound programming principles; knowing how to take the listener on a ride with ups and downs, tempo changes and moods. 

Now PDs could sit back and trust the computer to not play two female artists back to back, to make sure songs from each category were played with unfailing rotation and be able to predict what was going to happen next. Do you think listeners didn’t, at least subliminally, pick up that ability as well? No more surprises… good or bad. 

That is why I enjoy listening to college radio. It’s not always ‘good radio’, but they have the freedom to explore and experiment and as a result often stumble into brilliance. 

Too much has been left to the computers efficient and predictable outcome. Knowing how to program music is not only something a PD should know how to do; it is something a PD should know how to teach. 

Give me a jock that knows how to keep the momentum going and uses the feed back he gets from working the phones to judge audience mood and activities. Let me hear some passion and enthusiasm on the air; a jock really ‘getting into’ the music the way you expected the audience to do. You know who has that skill? True ‘club’ DJs. The real pros used to be on the radio.  

Having been a DJ at local clubs during the ‘disco years’ was a great learning experience. These lessons were also available to attentive jocks doing ‘sock hops’ at local high schools… What gets them on their feet? What sets them up for a ballad without clearing the floor? What do you do when all the girls are lined up against one wall and the guys lined up against the other? 

Club DJ’s picked up the torch and learned to mix moods and tempos, with the help of a little ‘spoken word’ that set the audience up for an impending tempo change. It’s difficult to learn things like pacing and how to use them on the air without ever being face to face with an audience. A computer can’t do it. And so, it has mostly become a lost art as far as radio goes. 

As new talent comes up through the ranks they have less responsibility and expectations placed on them as far as having this kind of skill set. Instead it’s left to what could be coded into a soulless computer program. 

In commercial radio, the power of computers is often not used as a tool in the hands of a craftsman, but used to remove the chance of variation from a cold calculated outcome. Over-reliance on computer programs has on-air talent being stripped of opportunities for creativity and spontaneity… and, most importantly, an opportunity to learn.

Songs and artists, as entertainment features on a music station, often don’t get the same attention and respect they would if you were introducing the artist live; when it’s “all about the music”.

It’s the ‘mystique’ of radio, again. The audience hasn’t lost the ability, or desire, to suspend their disbelief for the sake of entertainment… far from it, and just think of the possibilities of what you can conjure from behind a microphone that, for example, a music video can’t.

I remember a listener calling one time to single me out as playing better music than the other jocks on our station. I played the same ‘top 40’ as every one else, with the exception of a few ‘day parted’ songs, but I believed it was because I presented it differently; maybe made a tired, old song new again by putting it in a different light (can you say Can Con?). I also believe it had to do with the freedom to mix the music we had to chose from the way we saw fit, as opposed to having a computer do it, but that is another story…

Really putting a ‘spotlight’ on the music often seems to be secondary to whatever jumble of activities the station is promoting. ‘Back-selling’ a half dozen songs is wrong anyway, when the prevailing philosophy should be what’s happening now and what’s going to happen next. Now a ‘performance’, a song by an artist on the radio, is often treated almost as an inconvenience instead of as if it were actually an important part of the show.

Think of a late night talk show with a musical guest. It’s not “…joke, joke, banter, banter… oh and here’s so and so”. It’s more like”… joke, joke, banter, banter and oh… and now here is something really special…” .

It’s not “all the music”. It’s all about playing as much music as possible, with as few interruptions as possible. With the tight formatics, clocks and sweeps, you can’t introduce every record but when you do, make it special.Tell me why you are playing a song, something about the song; ask me to listen from a different perspective; show some passion about the music… get into it!.

In the culture of read the liner; get in and get out; shut up and play the music; station handle and positioning statement must go here, (regardless of whether it is logically placed in a passionate enthusiastic introduction of an artist) it just seems that logic has been bred out of ‘DJ’s, and their sense of mission has been lost. Why does music often seem incidental even on a music station?

Personality and passion for the music as an ingredient in presentation is the very thing that can rejuvenate and differentiate terrestrial radio from every other form of music delivery available today.

It’s the one thing you can’t get on your iPod… oh crap, yes you can, the new one talks. Well, if we don’t waste any more time, we may have small window of opportunity before it develops a personality, too.

It’s interesting that the design of many of the new wi-fi and internet table-top radios hearken back to some seemingly yearned-for romance hidden in broadcast radio’s halcyon days. A radio still looks unmistakably like a radio. 

In talking about internet radio, Jerry Del Colliano, founder of Inside Radio, recently said, “DJs will not be necessary although personalities will always have a place… many young people seem to like the personal in-your-ear approach. 

Well, if you take DJ’s to mean, literally, ‘Disc Jockeys’, that’s true. We well know that a computer can ‘jockey discs’. I, having been around awhile, often use the term ‘DJ’ and’ personality’ interchangeably. To me it’s the person who introduces the ‘records’, another old fashioned term that actually is still technically correct. Whether it is vinyl, a compact disc, an MP3, or whatever the media, it is a ‘recording’. That’s where the word ‘record’ came from. I digress… 

There is a romance that is there in the subconscious of audio lovers who can remember first hand that unique connection with personalities and hosts. The reverberations are strong enough that even those who did not experience it first hand seem to feel some longing and identification with that experience. It’s great to stumble onto a show that you can connect with but, almost as often, I find myself compelled to listen only in the same way as I can’t turn away from a train wreck. 

In an interview with Mark Ramsey in his book ‘Making Waves: Radio on the Verge’ Douglas Rushkoff said: 

Most stations are looking at the listener community as a bunch of consumers to be segmented, targeted, manipulated - the sort of spreadsheet approach to radio as opposed to the passionate approach…They don’t ooze their culture anymore. There was a smell and a quality and a texture to everything radio that I think was the fun of the industry…When I turn on the radio now… It’s just another working stiff with some computer telling them what to play and when to play it… 

I know that this is not always the case and, again, that you take exception to these sentiments. There are still pockets of resistance out there… and they need our help.